Image capture devices, such as digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras, are capable of capturing images such that a portion of the image is in focus and such that other portions of the image are out of focus. For instance, these image capture devices can capture an image with a shallow depth of field to emphasize particular objects in the image while blurring or removing background objects. This can provide a more aesthetic appearance to the captured image as it imitates the human visual system.
The advance of mobile technology has led to the incorporation of image capture devices into mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, wearable computing devices and other mobile devices. These camera-enabled mobile devices typically do not have the focus and shallow depth of field capability of more sophisticated image capture systems. Rather, the camera-enabled mobile devices can typically only capture images with the entire image in focus or substantially in focus (i.e. an “all-in-focus” image). This is due primarily to the hardware size limitations typically resulting from incorporating image capture devices into small camera-enabled mobile devices.
Techniques are known for refocusing portions of an all-in-focus image. However, such refocus techniques can only be implemented with the use of special hardware components that can be difficult to incorporate with small image capture devices used in mobile applications. Moreover, the spatial resolution of an image processed according to such techniques can be limited.